2-982-400 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hop-pickers on the Road - drawn by Phiz, 1858. Seasonal farm workers. 'Here meet together the respectable poor and the disreputable poor, the honest labourer and the thief (doing honest work now), the decently dressed and the ragged and tattered, the clean and the dirty, the frank open-faced and the cut-throat looking; all working peacefully together...cheerful and happy, and the most depraved seemingly softened down by the beauties of nature which surround them...Kent and Sussex [are] the chief hop-growing counties. Hop-picking generally commences about the early part of September, and ends towards the middle of October'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.